Children of the Corn (1984)

7/25/18

Directed by: Fritz Kiersch

Written by: Stephen King, George Goldsmith (Screenplay)

Starring:  Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong

Budget: $800,000

Quote: "And just as he was offered up unto Him, so shall be the unbelievers"

Trivia: In the original ending of the story Linda Hamilton's character Vicki was killed by the children. She joined "the blue man" on a cross and had her eyes cut out.



Watching this last night, my wife asked me, wait, where is all the white haired kids with the creepy eyes while showing me a google image search resulting in black and white movie shots with scary looking white haired children. Nope, those iconic creepy kids are from Village of the Damned. While the children of Children of the Corn's children don't have the same skin scrawling effect on viewers it is one of the better Stephen King movies and has some very memorable scenes. It combines three of the creepier horror subgenres: rural (Deliverance), religious fanaticism (The Wickerman), and creepy kids (Village of the Damned). These three mesh together really well into a twisted film that had to have been an inspiration for the incredibly film Frailty which would also combines these three subgenres sixteen years later.

It is the opening scene where the filmmakers really capture the viewer's attention. It begins in a diner in the small town of Gatlin where blue collar families are enjoying their Sunday meals. Within moments the children, seemingly under the spell of a Mennonite child looking into the diner begin murdering every adult in the diner. Throats are slit, people are stabbed and others are bludgeoned. The children then calmly leave, leaving the carnage and a sole survivor, another child, behind. Instead of an explanation of the murders the camera smash cuts to a cute scene of a couple being silly in bed. The changing in the pace of the movie makes the introduction all the more jarring.

The rest of the movie oscillates between the couple's story and the story with the children. As the couple drives through corn country middle America towards, we can only suppose, to the beloved town full of psycho children, we get a firsthand look at the children of Gatlin through the eyes of the surviving child from the diner, a kid named Job. Job and his kid sister reluctantly belong to a fanatical religious order of all children headed by a zealot named Issac (John Franklin, who also played Cousin It in the 90s Adams Family Movies) and his religious enforcer named Malachi (Courtney Gains, he played the creepy neighbors' son in The Burbs). They have some off-brand fire and brimstone version of old testament Christianity where they believe "He Who Walks Behind the Rows" speaks to Issac giving him messages and directives to kill.

What I love about this movie is the mythology they create for the children's religion. The mixture of Old Testament Christianity and a certain paganism makes for a terrifying belief system. Their God lives within the cornfield so, as one would suppose, corn makes up a major part of their belief system. They carry crucifixes made out of corn, corn is scattered throughout the places where their victims are killed, there are even crucifixions within the corn field (instead of a crown of thorns, it is a crown made of corn husks). This means, of course, their implements of death are farm equipment: scythes, machetes, shovels, chains, etc.

One child who attempts to escape is quickly caught by Malachi and nearly killed. As he wonders into the street, he is hit by the couple from the beginning of the film who were busy looking at a map and not watching the road. The couple takes the body and spends a good thirty minutes of the movie looking for a phone. During that time they encounter a mechanic and his dog, whom the children both kill (The mechanic, I understand, but the dog? That goes against movie rules 101). A lot of the murder happens off screen but there are some great POV shots in the corn field looking in and a mysterious force that hints at the possibility of there actually being something to the kid's religion.

Eventually, they catch the woman, Vicky (Linda Hamilton from the Terminator which came out the same year!) and use her as bait to catch her husband so they can perform some religious rites to appease their god. Vicky is tied to a corn cross in the middle of a cornfield next to "the blue man," which is a desiccated corpse of a policeman that had tried to stop the children. The image of the woman from Terminator crucified like a Midwestern Christ is a scene that will stay with me.

The ending was a bit of a disappointment. The short story that the book was based on had the woman killed next to the "blue man." Instead, the movie went for the happy-go-lucky ending, completely at odds with the rest of the film. The children decide to give up their belief system when they are VERY BRIEFLY questioned by the husband character... completely destroying everything that made their fanaticism terrifying. The husband then, along with the help of plucky Job, destroys the cornfield and the demon that lives in it (probably not since there are like a dozen sequels). Then there is this final scene where the kid says something cute and Vicky responds with a get-a-load-of-this-guy comment and they all laugh and she asks if the kids can live with them and he says of course and they go off to live happily ever after while the sweet music plays. I don't need a bummer of an ending but it was so sickly sweet and out of touch with the rest of the film that it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Oh well, overall the movie was good. Always great to see Sarah Connor getting work and Mennonite children murdering people with scythes is pretty great. I'll have to check out some of the sequels sometime.